Saint Margaret of Cortona

Saint Margaret of Cortona was a penitent and Franciscan tertiary of the 13th century. For years she lived with a man who did not take her as his wife; after his death she was converted, took up severe penance and gave herself to the service of the sick and the poor in Cortona, in Tuscany. The Church remembers her on February 22.

She was born in 1247 in Laviano, a village near Lake Trasimeno, on the border of Umbria and Tuscany, into a poor peasant family. She lost her mother as a child and found no warmth in her stepmother. In her teens she left home for a young nobleman from Montepulciano, whom tradition calls Arsenio. She lived in his castle for about nine years and bore him a son, but there was no wedding: she was a peasant, he a nobleman.

The turning point was the man’s violent death; most accounts speak of murder. Tradition tells that his dog led Margaret to his body, and for this reason she is painted with a dog at her side. The dead man’s relatives put her out of the castle, and her father’s house remained closed to her. So she came with her son to Cortona. Two noblewomen of the town took her under their roof, and she earned her living by helping women in childbirth. She sought spiritual direction from the Friars Minor.

After a few years of probation she was received into the Third Order of Saint Francis. From then on she lived in strict poverty, fasted, begged for alms and spent long hours in prayer before the crucifix. Her son later joined the Friars Minor. The Roman Martyrology says that Margaret gave herself to the contemplation of heavenly things and that God adorned her with sublime charisms.

She nursed the sick poor, especially expectant mothers whom no one was helping. With the help of leading families she founded the first hospital for the poor in Cortona, the House of Our Lady of Mercy. Around it she gathered women known as the “Poverelle,” the little poor ones, and a confraternity that supported the hospital and those in need. She also reconciled the feuding factions of the city.

Around 1288 she moved to a cell beside the ruined church of Saint Basil, below the fortress that overlooks the city; at her request the church was rebuilt. There she died on February 22, 1297, and there she was buried. Her body rests to this day in the shrine in Cortona that bears her name. The chief source of what is known about her is the “Legenda” written by her confessor, the Franciscan Giunta Bevegnati.

She was venerated from the moment of her death, and Cortona has her as its patroness. The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints gives March 17, 1653, under the pontificate of Innocent X, as the date of her beatification. Benedict XIII enrolled her among the saints on May 16, 1728, in the Vatican Basilica. In 1993 John Paul II prayed at her tomb. He called her a model of conversion and recalled that this woman of the people was, in her city, a messenger of peace and an active witness of charity.